Microsoft's new operating system Windows 8 has failed to capture the minds of most consumers, a new poll has shown.

The phone survey of nearly 1,200 adults in the US by The Associated Press and GfK found that nearly 52 percent respondents had not even heard of Windows 8, after the release of the redesigned software on Friday.

The poll found that among the people who knew something about the new operating system, 61 percent had little or no interest in buying a new laptop or desktop computer running on Windows 8.

Only about a third, 35 percent of the people who had heard about the new system believed it would be an improvement.

According to Express.co.uk, engineer Chris Dionne, 43, of Waterbury, Connecticut, had already seen Windows 8 and it did not persuade him to abandon or upgrade his laptop running on Windows 7, the previous version of the operating system released in 2009.

"I am not real thrilled they are changing things around," he said, adding: "Windows 7 does everything I want it to. Where is the return on my investment to learn a new OS (operating system)?"

Microsoft usually releases a new version of Windows every two or three years, but it is different this time around.

Windows 8 is the most radical redesign of the operating system since 1995 and some analysts consider the software to be Microsoft's most important product since co-founder Bill Gates won the contract to build an operating system for IBM's first personal computer in 1981, the report said.

According to the report, the consumer ambivalence, however, was even more pronounced when it came to Microsoft's new tablet computer, Surface, which was built to show off Windows 8's versatility.

Sixty-nine per cent of the poll's respondents expressed little or no interest in buying a Surface, which Microsoft is hoping will siphon sales from Apple's pioneering iPad and other popular tablets such as Amazon's Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7.(ANI)